Sarah and her sons managed to temporarily lose Banks by running into one of the buildings near where the area had been cordoned off.

"Hey, this building has been shut down, you can't come in here," shouted a guard as she headed inside.

Sarah didn't say a word as they barrelled past him. She knew it was just a matter of moments before either the guard or Banks would capture them.

Looking around she tried to find something that could help them escape somehow and spotted the sign for a stairwell. She ran towards the stairwell, flung the door open for the boys and then leaned her weight against it to hold it closed. Turning to see if the boys were alright, she spotted the answer to her prayers. There, behind the boys, was a glass case marked "Fire Emergency Only".

The boys looked up in surprise when they saw the grin on her face. Taking a chance she abandoned the door, then told the boys to duck and broke the case open, pulling the fire hose out "Luke, when I tell you to, turn the hose on as quickly as you can," she told him. "Sid, come hold this thing with me."

Both boys did as they were told. Sarah waited with Sid for the door to open. "After you turn the water on come and join us," Sarah told Luke.

In a few seconds the footsteps of the guard reached the door. Sarah nodded to Luke as the handle on the door moved.

As the door opened, the water came gushing out of the hose, nearly knocking Sarah Jane and Sid over but they managed to hold onto it. Luke ran over to them and grabbed the hose while his mother successfully hit the guard with a huge spray. He went down with a loud thud, slipping in the cold water and trying to regain his footing.

Before he could, Sarah Jane used his surprise to grab his gun and train it on him. "I don't want to hurt you but we need to find a safe place to hide in this building, so, for your own safety, please don't follow us." She turned to her sons. "Boys head back out into the lobby, I'll be right behind you." She looked at the soaking wet guard and shrugged. "Give us ten minutes and then you can go somewhere and dry off, safe and sound. This really isn't worth you getting hurt over you know."

The guard looked up at her dripping and shivering. "I'm with you, lady. I'm just here because my uncle owns the building. I don't know what you're running from but it's not my problem."

"Thanks," Sarah Jane smiled at him, then slipped carefully out the door.

When she saw the boys she put her arm around them and gave them a hug. "Well done, let's slip round to the back of the building and get out of here as fast as we can. We've got a weapon now, let's just hope we don't need to use it."

"We're not going to hide in this building, mum," questioned Sid.

"No, I was just saying that to throw off anyone who comes looking for us."

Sid smiled as he looked back at the water on the floor where they left the stairwell. "That was like the water fight at my birthday, but with a lot more water in the hose. I wish we could do that again."

Luke laughed. "Yes, I could actually feel the water gushing through the hose. Can you imagine what we could do if we had one like that at home? I bet the look on Uncle Harry's face would be amazing if we shot him with it."

"Whoosh," laughed Sid as he splayed his arms and stumbled around.

Sarah shook her head as she headed toward the back of the building, hoping there would not be anyone there waiting for them when they reached it. The guard's comment about his uncle worried her; if the owner had had time to send over guards when everything was shut down, he might have sent more than one.

On the other hand, it was good to hear the boys' laughter, even though she was still worried sick about John and Lisa Ann. When they got out of this place they'd have to get back to following those tracks - if they could even find them again.


Harry arrived at the grounds in much less time than he would have expected given the speed limits. He immediately set about trying to find Sarah Jane and the boys, keeping an eye out for John and Lisa Ann as well as any Daleks or Torchwood along the way.

He stopped short at the destruction for a moment; he hadn't seen things quite this bad in a while. Since leaving UNIT after their adventure in an alternate reality, Harry had been working for NATO and spending a lot of time in Africa working on vaccine programs. Sometimes it was a convenient excuse to be in place for his work in the intelligence service, but most of the time he was just glad to be a doctor.

Still, he often found himself in the more ramshackle parts of the world - where his services where most needed - and he had to admit, as Dalek attacks went, this was... somewhat limited.

Oh, certainly there was death and destruction. It didn't take him long to find a pile of bodies stacked up and waiting for removal, and he skirted the area before anyone saw him. But it seemed to him that this was an attack that was based on more than just causing mayhem - more than simply taking over the world.

No, there seemed to be a purpose here.

He pulled out the sensor again, and glanced at it. All it told him was a general direction, and he followed it.


John struggled as he and Lisa were dragged backwards, but the arms that gripped him were like iron and just as the hand over his mouth started cutting off his oxygen a door closed in front of him and it was as if he were suddenly somewhere else.

The arms released him and he rounded on his captor, realizing all at once that this was not the Dalek ship.

He was standing in a large, almost cavernous room, which looked as if it had been sumptuously decorated at one time. A table covered with what looked like maps and diagrams stood before a Victorian armchair that had undoubtedly been beautiful in its day, and both looked discarded before a wall of worn bookshelves that were now almost devoid of books. A thick layer of dust blanketed the candle wax that covered almost every surface, and an almost sub-audible hum seemed to vibrate in the pit of his stomach.

A wooden inlay stood out from the marble floor, housing a hexagonal podium of some sort. It was covered with switches and dials and levers and screens but before he could even think about what they did his eyes were drawn to the two interlocking assemblies of blue luminescent cylinders hanging above it, and the strange-looking man standing alongside.